Posts Tagged ‘sex slavery’

MATLACK: When you’re dealing with young girls, does the definition of the girl being young enough make it human trafficking?

AGENT: If the girl’s a minor, she doesn’t need to be forced into it for it to be human trafficking. If it’s a 15-year-old girl and you’re her pimp, even if she wants to go out and have sex for money, that’s still considered human trafficking. Once somebody’s an adult, you have to be able to prove that through force, fraud, or coercion that this girl was forced into those sex acts.

MATLACK: And so what’s the breakdown in terms of the cases that you’re pursuing between minors and not minors?

AGENT: I would say it’s almost 50-50.

MATLACK: Can you help me understand how common it is?

AGENT: It is a lot more common that people think. Most people can’t differentiate between human trafficking and human smuggling. People think that this could never happen here, when actually it’s there. You just may not see it, may not know about it, may not hear about it. But, believe it or not, it’s a pretty common occurrence.

A TIP-OFF to the Salvation Army uncovered their ”abhorrent situation”. Three young women, allegedly lured to Australia from Thailand on the promise of student visas, had been allegedly held against their will to work as sex slaves in a western Sydney brothel.

Yesterday, the Australian Federal Police announced they had arrested the 42-year-old Chinese-Cambodian owner of the Diamonds 4 Ever brothel in Guildford and charged him with human trafficking offences.

The three women, believed to be under 18, claim they were told they were travelling to Australia on student visas but, once here, their passports were allegedly confiscated and they say were taken to the brothel and forced to work as prostitutes.

The brothel’s website boasts of ”dream ladies” and an excellent reputation for luxurious, prestigious services.

What I saw today was angering and sad at the same time. As you have seen in the pictures I took, these girls are living in deplorable conditions. The bed, pictured below, sleeps as many as four to six girls in one night.I was told these spa’s bring in about $1,500 per shift, per girl. Many spas operate 24 hours per day. Now this isn’t the only money involved. This is just the door fees paid to the “house” when the client enters. After that is the fees paid to the girl which might run anywhere from $40 to $200 per session depending on the services requested. The door fees alone can total up to a half million dollars a month from just one spa. Many own up to as many as four or five.

The Superbowl is known for the bacchanalia that surrounds it. However, the celebration and revelry that we think of doesn’t usually involve the illegal prostitution of minors. Last year Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, preparing for what he understood to be a major increase in forced, underage commercialized sex (read – child sex slaves) called the Superbowl “the single largest human trafficking incident in the United States.On Tuesday, Indiana Senate passed a bill making it unlawful to arrange for a person to engage in any forced sexual acts. Until today, the law only prohibited prostitution and forced marriage, not sexual slavery. “This is a serious issue being accelerated through the General Assembly due to events surrounding the upcoming Super Bowl in February,” said Sen. Randy Head.The trouble is, selling young girls for sex is a big business. The Indiana Senate knows it has a problem. The question is why doesn’t everyone?

Michael Stokes, known as “The Rodent,” 63, of Lebanon, Mo., pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Mo., to his role in a conspiracy to commit sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion.Stokes is the last of four defendants convicted under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. A statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Kansas City said that Stokes admitted having sex with the woman, engaging in torture sessions with her, and promoting her appearance in sadistic sessions in magazines and strip clubs.

Like this:

South Korea — The unsmiling teenage girl in traditional Korean dress sits in a chair, her feet bare, her hands on her lap, her eyes fixed on the Japanese Embassy across a narrow street in central Seoul. Within a day, the life-size bronze statue had become the focal point of a simmering diplomatic dispute as President Lee Myung-bakprepared to visit Tokyo this weekend.

The statue, named the Peace Monument, was financed with citizens’ donations and installed Wednesday, when five women in their 80s and 90s, who were among thousands forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese military during World War II, protested in front of the embassy, joined by their supporters. Such protests have been held weekly for almost 20 years.

For them and for many other Koreans, the statue — placed so that Japanese diplomats see it as they leave their embassy — carries a clear message: Japan should acknowledge what it did to as many as 200,000 Asian women, mostly Koreans, who historians say were forced or lured into working as prostitutes at frontline brothels for Japanese soldiers.

A Kenyan gay magazine has exposed male sex trafficking between Kenya and the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.Identity magazine says that gay and bisexual Kenyans are being lured from universities with promises of jobs only to end up as sex slaves.They spoke to one victim promised a job in Qatar but who ended up suffering humiliating and violent sadistic sexual abuse. He managed to escape but told the magazine that he had traveled to the Gulf state with five others and they were then separated at the airport.Qatar has no anti-trafficking legislation and is on a U.S. Department of State watch list for showing no evidence of overall progress in prosecuting and punishing trafficking offenders and identifying victims of trafficking.Kenya does have anti-trafficking legislation, as of last year, but because homosexuality is illegal in both the Arab states as well as Kenya the men are unable to report abuse to police.

I have mixed feelings about prostitution (I believe women should do what they want with their bodies, but I believe that the industry harbors criminals, disregards those who are enslaved, and can give men an unhealthy appetite for sex and violence). I hope that law enforcement and society can work alongside those who are willingly in the industry to help eradicate those who are forcing others to work as prostitutes, as well as those who are enslaved.

One person reposted, and added this below:

“…can give men an unhealthy appetite for sex and violence” Ugh, what? Sex work doesn’t do that. A society that encourages disrespect towards women and refuses to acknowledge the personhood of women who engage in sexual acts does that. A society that refuses to acknowledge and respect the validity of sex work does that.

What are you even talking about.

I wrote to this person, but wanted to respond publicly on my blog, because s/he makes an excellent point, and I need to clarify to my followers. I didn’t mean to and don’t blame sex workers for men having unhealthy appetites towards sex and/or violent sex (i.e. rape/sexual abuse). When I said “the industry,” what I specifically meant are those brothel owners, madams, pimps, and those involved in organized crime who either allow johns to abuse prostitues, or those who actually traffic men, women, and children as sex slaves. I apologize for writing a sentence that seemed to blame the victim – it definitely was not my intent and (although I don’t appreciate the attitude, although I realize it’s the nature of the internet), I do appreciate the criticism for helping me continue to be careful in how I handle these subjects.

Like this:

You have entrepreneurs that are saying ‘wow, I can make $300,000 per girl, per year tax-free.’ And in a stable you’ll have anywhere from four to 10 girls. And you do the math, they’re making money. The girls are reusable everyday. They’re just a product to these guys.